The Suns Article on Shad

[Sammyffc]

WHEN Fulham fans first saw the club's new owner their immediate reaction was: 'Why the hell have we been bought by 'adult' actor Ron Jeremy?'
And they were probably none the wiser when his true identity was revealed as Shahid Khan.
Because this time last week it's safe to assume that 99.9 per cent of Craven Cottage supporters had never even heard of the Illinois-based owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Yet though Khan may bear a disturbing resemblance to 'Werewolves in Heat' star Jeremy, Fulham's latest benefactor insists he is not in town to shaft their club.
And I suppose we will just have to take him at his word. Because, right now, Fulham supporters can't be sure if they are getting the next Roman Abramovich or another Anuradha Desai.
Forbes magazine lists Khan as the 491st richest person in the world with an estimated personal fortune of £1.7billion.
Then again, they once had Venky's in their list of the top 100 small global companies. And look at the clucking mess they've made of Blackburn.
At least we know Khan has got the money. And lots of it.
He paid £500million to buy the Jaguars NFL franchise 18 months ago and has now forked out a further £150million to Mohammed Al Fayed for Fulham.
But it is worth nothing that before he bought the Jaguars, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the St Louis Rams, a bid which was blocked by minority shareholder and current Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke.
The Jaguars are, by all accounts, the duffest team in the NFL. That's American football for those of us with no interest in American football.
Last year Mr Khan signed a four-year deal with Wembley Stadium to stage one Jaguars' NFL games per season.
He spoke at the time about London being 'the missing piece' in his ambitions to turn the Jaguars into a 'successful corporate franchise'.
Now call me suspicious, but doesn't the acquisition of Fulham fit rather neatly into those plans?
He moved to assuage those doubts last week when he claimed: "I do not view myself so much as the owner of Fulham but a custodian of the club on behalf of its fans.
"My priority is to ensure the club and Craven Cottage have a viable Premier League future that fans of future generations can be proud of."
Soothing words. And remarkably similar to the comments of Sulaiman Al Fahim when he 'bought' Portsmouth in 2009 claiming: "I look forward to helping the club build on its impressive history and achieve new successes in the Premier League."
Unfortunately for Pompey, Al Fahim turned out to be little more than a snake-oil salesman who somehow got past the Premier League's 'fit and proper person's' test before flogging the club to the even more dubious Ali Al-Mirage.
At least Fulham followers can be reassured by the knowledge that Khan is a serious, respected businessman who has the financial resources to achieve all his ambitions for their club.
He made his fortune from the manufacture of automobile bumpers after moving to the States from his native Pakistan.
How ironic that a man whose business depends on car crashes now wants to get involved in Premier League football.
Personally, I am hoping that he will build a matching Donny Osmond statue to accompany the 20ft Michael Jackson tribute already in place at Craven Cottage.
It's just what the franchise is crying out for.


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/5016272/Mark-Irwin-MyView-column-Who-is-mystery-man-Shahid-Khan.html#ixzz2ZCaKQyEm

[The Equalizer]

Quite simply: A Hack.

[FFC1987]

Wouldn't expect anything different from the Sun.

[bulgariawhite]

I feel the media hasn't changed it's stance on knocking fulham at any opportunity. Give the man a chance. he maybe someone who with PR skill could turn this around. He is certainly a character

[fulhamfan]

the sun is a great paper and should be taken really seriously

[Rhys Lightning 63]

Because this time last week it's safe to assume that 99.9 per cent of Craven Cottage supporters had never even heard of the Illinois-based owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars

I AM THE 0.01%!!!

[Northern Cottager]

The Sun is absolute tosh. Even if you read the crap on there and then read the comments there are members wondering how on earth it has made it to news.

It's a bunch of poor journo's who are unable to write an educated piece and just put some opinionated poor attempt at humour and knowledge onto a crap sheet of toilet paper, each and every day. Eurgh.

[MikeCdawg]

"The Jaguars are, by all accounts, the duffest team in the NFL. That's American football for those of us with no interest in American football."

Excuse me but could someone explain to me what duffest means?  :49:

[Northern Cottager]

"The Jaguars are, by all accounts, the duffest team in the NFL. That's American football for those of us with no interest in American football."

Excuse me but could someone explain to me what duffest means?  :49:

See my post above. Sort of sums up my point in one word. Lol

[Lighthouse]

When Fulham fans first heard about an article in the Sun their immidiate reaction was -' the paper that lied about the Hillsborough disaster, why in God's name to we care? Is page three still going and do they still pretend to take the high ground on porn?'

Yet though the Sun may bear a disturbing resemblance to a newspaper, it is still in fact a comic for adults. Sadly it hasn't had an original thought since the day it was born.

[cmg]

Yep, sport journalism at its finest, in the tradition of Red Smith, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Hugh McIlvanney and Ian Wooldridge!

And he gets paid for this stuff? 1000 words saying absolutely nothing of interest.

I don't think it's specifically anti-Fulham, it's more anti-jounalism.

Mark Irwin: A man who knows his porno actors.

[jarv]

You read the Sun? :58:

[Holders]

Because this time last week it's safe to assume that 99.9 per cent of Craven Cottage supporters had never even heard of Jacksonville.

[Sammyffc]

woahhh chill !! the link came up on my twitter feed so i just clicked it and posted it here !

[cmg]

woahhh chill !! the link came up on my twitter feed so i just clicked it and posted it here !

Nobody's blaming you, mate. Thanks for posting it. I, for one, wouldn't have come across such an example of crass writing if you hadn't have put it up.

As an antidote I'll take the liberty of posting one of the best pieces of sports writing I ever read. In 1962 Benny Paret and Emile Griffiths faught a world welterweight championship decider in Madison Square Gardens. Pre-fight Paret had antagonised Griffiths by calling him 'maricon' ('faggot'). Norman Mailer reported the fight (I think for Sports Illustrated). Of course, tragedy usually makes a more powerful subject, but this was pretty vivid stuff:

"The Death of Benny Paret by Norman Mailer

Paret was a Cuban, a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch. His style of fighting was to take three punches to the head in order to give back two. At the end of ten rounds, he would still be bouncing, his opponent would have a headache. But in the last two years, over the fifteen-round fights, he had started to take some bad maulings.
This fight had its turns. Griffith won most of the early rounds, but Paret knocked Griffith down in the sixth. Griffith had trouble getting up, but made it, came alive and was dominating Paret again before the round was over. Then Paret began to wilt. In the middle of the eighth round, after a clubbing punch had turned his back to Griffith, Paret walked three disgusted steps away, showing his hindquarters. For a champion, he took much too long to turn back around. It was the first hint of weakness Paret had ever shown, and it must have inspired a particular shame, because he fought the rest of the fight as if he were seeking to demonstrate that he could take more punishment than any man alive. In the twelfth, Griffith caught him. Paret got trapped in a corner. Trying to duck away, his left arm and his head became tangled on the wrong side of the top rope. Griffith was in like a cat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat. He hit him eighteen right hands in a row, an act which took perhaps three or four seconds, Griffith making a pent-up whimpering sound all the while he attacked, the right hand whipping like a piston rod which has broken through the crankcase, or like a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin. I was sitting in the second row of that corner—they were not ten feet away from me, and like everybody else, I was hypnotized. I had never seen one man hit another so hard and so many times. Over the referee's face came a look of woe as if some spasm had passed its way through him, and then he leaped on Griffith to pull him away. It was the act of a brave man. Griffith was uncontrollable. His trainer leaped into the ring, his manager, his cut man, there were four people holding Griffith, but he was off on an orgy, he had left the Garden, he was back on a hoodlum's street. If he had been able to break loose from his handlers and the referee, he would have jumped Paret to the floor and whaled on him there.

And Paret? Paret died on his feet. As he took those eighteen punches something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event. Some part of his death reached out to us. One felt it hover in the air. He was still standing in the ropes, trapped as he had been before, he gave some little half-smile of regret, as if he were saying, "I didn't know I was going to die just yet," and then, his head leaning back but still erect, his death came to breathe about him. He began to pass away. As he passed, so his limbs descended beneath him, and he sank slowly to the floor. He went down more slowly than any fighter had ever gone down, he went down like a large ship which turns on end and slides second by second into its grave. As he went down, the sound of Griffith's punches echoed in the mind like a heavy ax in the distance chopping into a wet log."

[cebu]

the sun is a great paper and should be taken really seriously

What would fish & chips be without it?   092.gif

[hesedmedia]

Wait, this is in a newspaper over there?

[Ichabod Magoo]

"The Jaguars are, by all accounts, the duffest team in the NFL. That's American football for those of us with no interest in American football."

Excuse me but could someone explain to me what duffest means?  :49:

Only the dufus (doofis?) that wrote it could explain it.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Wait, this is in a newspaper over there?

The Sun is a `newspaper' owned by Rupert Murdoch.

[Rupert]

Wait, this is in a newspaper over there?

Yes, loosely speaking. We have a type of newspaper known as tabloids, a reference originally to the size of paper sheets printed on, but taken nowadays to mean the equivalent of the yellow press. It is possible to read the thing from cover to cover without your brain melting in protest, but you will learn very little news whilst doing so, just a number of opinions, often dressed up as news. The sad thing is, the Sun is a long way from being the worst of its kind, we have the Daily Star competing for that honour, I think their front page headline yesterday was something to do with two reality show contestants and their plans to meet up after the show (I may be wrong here, I only caught a quick glance as I went into the shop, feel free to correct me if you don't mind being outed as a Star "reader"), riveting stuff, I am sure you agree, and deserving to be on the front page.